2. You can have a tour of a Goat farm during your next Zoom meeting

A Californian goat sanctuary has come up with a unique way of raising funds during the COVID-19 lockdown. In return for a donation, they’ll join your Zoom meeting and give you a tour of the farm. To be fair, at this point you could replace me with a goat and our company Zoom meetings would probably make more sense.

One of the benefits of being at home, for me, is that I’ve become more aware of the visitors to my garden. I’ve been trying to identify the different bird calls. It’s harder than you would think. Steve gives a helpful guide to three common ones.

7. Bring back blogs

Wired Magazine has an excellent article on the inadequacies of social media, with an emphasis on Twitter, as a platform for disseminating complex information during global emergencies. Instead, they say, institutions should provide experts with the tools to publish long-form content on their own sites, and then use Twitter as a way to discuss and collaborate.

When confined to Twitter, pandemic experts mainly express themselves through 15- or 20-tweet long threads. Not only is this format cumbersome to consume, it also can’t easily be updated. To make matters worse, these threads are quickly pushed out of view by the downward pressure of the growing user timeline. A page or post on a blog, on the other hand, allows the expert to more easily write long-form content, including links to their articles and rich graphics, they can easily update as new information arises.

1. The oldest companies still in existence

The oldest in Europe is St. Peter Stiftskulinarium; a restaurant founded in Austria in 803. It sits within the walls of St.Peters Abbey in Salzburg and has served lunch to Christopher Columbus, Mozart & Faust. Found on Reddit.

2. Leaving your pets to the mercy of an internet-enabled ‘smart feeder’ is, surprisingly, not a good idea.

Please feed me

‘Petnet’ is a service that allows pet owners to schedule and control feeding times via their smartphone and an internet enabled ‘smart feeder’ costing £222. It works well, until it doesn’t: servers broke, connections failed and pets were sad. Ironically, one of the stated benefits of the service is preventing over feeding, so I guess it’s working as designed. What a strange world we live in. Via the BBC.

3. Vivienne Kubrick’s life with Stanley

4. Falling printer misses man by inches

5. Cartoon Fossils

6. More evidence that Facebook sucks.

In a surprise to no one, a new study shows that if you use Facebook less your life will improve. Even a minor reduction of 20 minutes per day leads to more physical activity, increased mood, and more satisfaction with life. Via Cal Newport

7. Irish singer cleans up his act after kid tells him to mind his language

Not sure what’s more awesome – the reaction of the singer, or the awesome EDM style beat-drop performed with acoustic instruments. Via YouTube